Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

Or shout out to quick to see

Fair play to those who dare to dream

1. shout out to the three female-led acts last night, February 14, 2024 Earthwise at Palo Alto Art Center auditorium: Lizzie No (also known as Stanford grad Elizabeth Quinlan from Princeton, NJ, on Thirty Tigers, booked by Virginia Prater, managed by Howard Greynolds and a crack band including Barry Stephenson on bass and Will Green on guitar — they sounded like they should open for Tedeschi Trucks band), Fumi Okiji Sink Head featuring her hubby Ben Davis on cello, Ben Goldberg on clarinet and Jordan Glenn on drums and as a lagniappe another Black Stanford grad, and another African diaspora expat performer known as Beti or Beti Masenqo on modified oud. She would not tell me her real name, wanting to mask her salad days as an engineering major turned civil servant in water policy in Sacramento.
2. But Beti Masenqo — the name references a type of Ethiopian stringed instrument — triggered me to think more about my friend Rebecca Eisenberg — who like Lizzie and Beti is a Stanford grad; but while the two singers are getting adulation, Becky — our miss Becky — we the people of Palo Alto thru Los Gatos who elected her with 40,000 votes — is now under extreme scrutiny to the point of mutiny of democratic principles — I called them Nazis. Six other members of that board Valley Water and their corrupt staff including Rick Callender and (TK attorney guy — who nobody voted for) are accusing her of this, that and the other. And charging us WE THE PEOPLE something like $600,000 The claim, let me see if I got this straight: called the boys pussies, dicks or assholes — WELL, THEY ARE PUSSIES, DICKS AND ASSHOLE, ENRICO ‘ENRICH ME”; then she stole 2,000 sheets of paper that tried to find something wrong in calling a crook a crook — I said that my Jim Plunkett pamphlet was worth more than that ream of paper — ream of decency I would say; then she did or did not answer the door bell after dark when some goon dressed in Valley Water golf shirts — if that is not redundant — rang her door bell hundreds of times. To get back the 2,000 sheets, the copy of their secret report? NO! He was trying to give her copy of another (paid for by taxpayers) report— the one that has two photos of her carrying said satchel out to a but not her car.f
3. Rebecca Eisenberg of Palo Alto, I would swear on a stack of Christian bibles even as a Jew, drives a blue car not a green car. So the report is false: it says the green car is her’s. Maybe that’s not even Rebecca. How do we know? Why should we care?
4. What we should care about is the $1B dam that Gary Kremens the incumbent pushed for but Rebecca, who went to Stanford and Harvard, pushed against. Although, as I said for the record, the dam cost $500M two years ago and now costs $1.5B — it has tripled in cost. Plus a finance guy said the costs would includes 30 percent more for financing — and its more like $5B all in not $500M. What the fuck! No wonder all these scumbags are calling her out. They want to put that fat snouts into the trough. Or as I said, in same public hearing: classic pork project, or what she calls “the golden spigot”.
5. Back at the ranch, planet earth, Earthwise: I have six slots booked for the 3rd Thursday event April 18 on California Avenue between El Camino and Birch: Cien Mil Mangos, Harvey Wainapel Brazil, Jack Tuttle and Friends featuring Sully Tuttle in tribute partly to Frank Ford of Gryphon, Roberta Donnay trio, Midtown Dreamers featuring Rouin and LeoC Chern a former Palo Alto Library Commissioner — I ran for the same seat, maybe the same cycle. When I applied to Library I was the only candidate who mentioned actual authors. 
6. I met some dudes from El Paso Texas and have a handshake to help produce an event there in their club — which is like the Fillmore or Independent here — to honor Miners great Kent Lockhart 1963-2023; Lockhart is a legend in three places: Palo Alto, Melbourne, El Paso;
7. Shout out to Phoebe Hunt, who may or may not own the chiefs, and did a version of Marty Robbins at Lytton Plaza for Kent;
8. I bought the USA Today today partly because it had an article on El Paso.
9. Terry and I are going to Yuma for the Yuma Arts Symposium where they trade pins.
10. Gunn Titans are in the CCS lower division — they are more like #40 out of 120 — but pulled out a win against Wilcox 82-81 and a brawl ensued, according to Post. Paly is in the higher bracket, despite losing to Los Gatos by 20. Paly is 20th in CCS or so. If Gunn wins they may end up playing Leland Chargers, which is the alma mater of a reporter I met at Valley water named Sakura Cannestra. Although I am not sure if reporters for non-profit newspapers are still reporters. The word is that these 501.c.3s are scams; you play for pay
11. Just got interrupted by Marla Allison and I am trying to bring her got Gunn High; I sent her a string of images: Thai boy of me and a trombone player doing BB King, a Winogrand image of a woman in tight shorts being a coke; me holding Lock’s #25 Titans jersey, wearing a Folkways shirt; La Dona flyer from August 7, 2021 by one of her friends who is Black and Pinay I think and worked as a security guard at Old Navy on Market in 2021; something about sweet foods made by a Pinay artist currently in the food themed art show at PA Art Center; portraits of Ethan Iverson and Marta Sanchez WHO APPEAR AT THE MITCH BY EARTHWISE APRIL 1, 2024 AND APRIL 2, 2024 by a high school artist using a computer program but who put in a lot of work to make it work; a Kinder box or wrapper because I based a Superchunk poster on it once, back in 1999 or 2000; art by an elder at the gallery near Printer’s Cafe on Cali Ave and this is where we came in… and1: I told Marla that one of her paintings of New Mexico the sky reminded me of Jasper Johns or Jaune Quick to See abstract maps or tiles. 
12. And and: I was angry this morning that my expired flyer was already taken down, for its primitivism unless someone was stealing the shard of a baseball card. 
13. I watched the TV morning news at Mac’s Smoke Shop because they teased a small segment about the antisemitic pro-Hamas display at Stanford. I will swing by their. Good riddance to bad rubbish. And an outrage if true Rebecca’s suggestion to Rick Callender of Valley Water is trying to get antisemites at the Islamic lobby to harass her. 

ORTHODOXY RATHER THAN

CONFRONT IT vs Groucho Marx prunes riff

Blackletter is a typeface, for instance in the Bible, Gutenberg — itself subject to a Broadway musical; Black Friar is or was an arts org or senior society at University Chicago to which my grandfather belonged. He was also Phi Beta Kappa.

There’s a musical named “Chicago” that Huey Lewis of Huey Lewis and the News once starred in but Pop Pop did not. He wrote something about his fraternity brother Roy Disney taking over the world, which actually came true. Or creating his own world Disneyland.

J.B. Pritzker did meanwhile sing “if I were a rich man” at Beth Am in 1974 when he was 10 and was merely a rich boy; he is governor of Illinois and a Jew. Nathan Shedroff who is Joshua Redman’s first cousin and also worked for the guy who wrote about typefaces and information — I’m forgetting his name — Access Guide guy or guide methinks — is the only other person alive who remembers J.B. pretty impressive take. The history professor at Princeton Amy Borovoy might have been there too but she has not responded for comment.

Something I’m not sure what wants me to close with spit in the whole and tune again.

Well, you’ve never heard of me, bob, even though I’ve written you 50 times.  (“What about Bob?”)

1) I did produce one Cindy Bullens show at the Stanford student union for Earthwise Productions. I Remember the radio promoter or the music Director of Alice 97.7 came to lunch with us.  I had no idea who she was, only that the agent was someone I did business with.  I Remember the thing about the child with cancer.  

2) I have a similar name to Mary Weiss, and I discovered The Donnas. 

I think I wrote to Mary Weiss once about The Donnas.  

I am Turning 60 in exactly 12 hours and 62 minutes— who knows maybe I’ll go to the Niners game as “Mary“ not Mark…. Not all the cards have been dealt.  

Mark weiss

In Palo Alto

Sent from my inner girl power

Coda: in fall of 1981 I was a stringer for the peninsula Times  tribune  covering high school football and Mike Nolan the sports writer had transitioned to Michelle Nolan…. They said that the other Sportswriters put a cucumber in their mail box — I got blackballed from the Greek system at dartmouth in ‘84 for writing about Gay rights —

What makes Sammy run?

This book was written by my fellow dartmouthian Budd Schulberg, who told a convention of journalists in Hanover circa 1999 that he was almost expelled by President Hopkins for  writing a sympathetic account of a miners‘ strike up in Vermont. 

On Jan 23, 2024, at 8:15 PM, Bob Lefsetz <bob@lefsetz.com> wrote:

”TransElectric: My Life as a Cosmic Rock Star”: https://rb.gy/s679py

You might not know who Cidny Bullens is, but you should read his book.

Yet if you were a rock aficionado back in the seventies, and devoured all the information you could lay your hands on, of course you know who Cindy Bullens is, she’s the backup singer who toured with Elton John and was going to break big with her powerhouse rock vocals.

But she didn’t.

Mary Weiss died the other day, you know, of the Shangri-Las. “Leader of the Pack” is what you hear most these days, but I always preferred its predecessor, “Remember (Walking in the Sand).” It was a hit during the summer of ’64, it battled the Supremes’ first Top 40 crossover hit, “Where Did Our Love Go?,” for chart dominance. Both great cuts, at the time I preferred the Shangri-Las tune, although now my preference has flipped. In any event, back then I saw the acts as equals, but they didn’t turn out to be. The Shangri-Las stalled out, and the Supremes became icons. But I’ll never forget seeing Mary Weiss with her long blond hair and boots on TV. But Mary didn’t write the songs, and therefore she rode out her days as an administrator at an architecture firm. You see you’ve got to earn a living.

So Cindy Bullens is plucked out of obscurity by Elton John

Both grand pianos, the Roland SH-3A and the Rhodes 88 were retained for Vangelis’ active late 1970s and early 1980s setup, which also featured newer synthesizers by Yamaha (CS-40M and GS-1), ARP Instruments (Pro Soloist, 2500, Odyssey), Oberheim Electronics(TVS-1A, four and eight-voice Polyphonic Synthesizers), Sequential Circuits (Prophet-5 and Prophet-10), Roland (Jupiter-4, ProMars Compuphonic and the modular Systems 101, 102, and 104), a Korg Polyphonic Ensemble, an RSF Kobol Black Box, and a MiniMoog. Other studio equipment during this period included the Solina String Ensemble and EKO Stradivarius string synthesizers; sequencers by ARP, Roland (CSQ-100 and CSQ-600), and Oberheim (DS-2); drum machines by Simmons(SDS-V), Korg (KR-55, Mini Pops 120), Roland (CR-5000 Compurhythm), and Linn (LM-1); vocoders by EMS (Vocoder 1000) and Roland (VP-330 VocoderPlus Mk. I); and the Dubrecq Stylophone350S. Vangelis also added a CrumarCompac-piano and a Yamaha CP-80 to his piano set-up.^[129]  

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THIRTEEN MUSICIANS THREE DOGS AND AN ARTIST

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Charlotte’s mother arrives. She brings her cello. She’s an expert on the siege of Leningrad. She has written a book on the topic. When Charlotte’s coma is induced, her mother fills the neuro ward with the saddest sounds ever conceived. For days, there is nothing but the swish of vent baffles, the trill of vital monitors, and Shostakovich, Shostakovich, Shostakovich. (Adam Johnson, “Nirvana” 2015 in Fortune Smiles)